Do countries with lower self-citation rates produce higher impact papers? Or, does humility pay?

Résumé 0

"Studying the 62 countries producing most papers reported in the SCImago data base in the period 1996-2008, it was found that countries with low per capita publication numbers show variable rates of self-citations and produce publications with lower citation impact. In contrast, countries with larger numbers of citations per paper have also high per capita publication numbers and their researchers appear to be humbler, showing lower rates of country and author self-citations. Notable exceptions are China, USA and Iran, which show abnormally high country self-citation rates, partially explained respectively by large populations, large total number of publications and language barriers. An increase of self-citation rates in almost all countries during the last decade, calls for exploring science policies that increase international scientific impact, such as more international cooperation, and science education with broader outlooks."